THE chairman of Carlton television has
condemned a documentary on the Middle East
conflict made by his own company as
inaccurate and an
attack on Israel. John
Pilger's film, shown on Monday night,
just after the conclusion of Yom Kippur,
the holiest day in the Jewish calendar,
equated Israeli military action with
Palestinian suicide bombers and concluded
that injustices inflicted by Israel were
at the heart of the conflict.

Michael Green, chairman of
Carlton Communications, told the Jewish
Chronicle
[he is
Jewish] that the programme was
"a tragedy for Israel as far as accuracy
is concerned. I had seen the programme
before it was broadcast and was extremely
unhappy about it. It was one- sided. It
was factually incorrect, historically
incorrect."

Mr Green had not sought to prevent it
being broadcast in its original form. He
said: "I fully accept that we are a public
service broadcaster and that is the
opinion of John Pilger. Unfortunately, you
can't always agree with him. He has a huge
reputation but consistently my views are
opposed to his views." Mr Green now
wanted a programme
to be made that gave an Israeli
point of view.

Carlton said that calls and e-mails
that it had received were divided equally
between praise and criticism. The company
declined to comment on the allegations of
inaccuracy.

The Israeli Embassy called it a
"dehumanising portrayal of the Jewish
people, exemplified by insinuation and
comparison to the Holocaust." Gillian
Shephard, of Conservative Friends of
Israel, said that the "grossly unbalanced
and biased programme" could hardly
contribute to peace. Mr Pilger was
unavailable for comment last night.